Thatch roofing



I 2Sheets Sheet 1. l

' (No Model.)

C. N. BUSHNELL. THATCH RooHNG.

No. 606,186. Patented June 28,1898.

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C. N. BUSHNELL.

` THATGH RooFING. NO- 606,166' Patented June 28,1898.

W/ TNE SSE S t A TTOHNEYS.

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UNITED STATES CHARLES N. BUSI-INELL,

PATENT @arten OF OQUAWKA, ILLINOIS.

THATCH ROOFING.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent o. 606,186, dated J une 28, 1898. Application filed MMCILI, 1898. i Serial No. 672,165. (No model.)

To @ZZ whom, t may concern.-

of Oquawka, in the county of Henderson and State of Illinois, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Thatch Rooiing, of which the following is a specification.

The object of my invention is to provide a cheap form of thatch roofing which is made complete and furnished in rolls and only requires to be laid on the rafters and then attached by wires or otherwise.

It consists in wisps of straw or grass woven into a coarse fabric with successive overlapping layers forming a'water-shed surface after the manner of shingles, as will be hereinafter more fully described with reference to the drawings, in which- Figure l is a plan View of a section of the thatch roofing. Fig. 2 is an enlarged section taken parallel to the warp-wires, and Fig. 3 is an end View looking sidewise at the wisps.

In the drawings, A B are the wisps of straw, which form the filling or body of the roofing. This is made of any suitable straw, such as that derived from d ried grass or grain. erably it is made of the straw of the long stiff m arsh-grass known as ramrod-grass, which when dried is very stiff, tough, and well-nigh indestructible from ordinary processes of rotting. The roofing fabric-is made two-ply, as shown in Fig. 2, the upper layer of wisps A alternating with the lower layer B, so that said lower layer closes the spaces existing between the wisps of the upper layer, this being an essential condition in making a fabric that will shed water without allowing it to drip through the openings where the warpwires cross. To make this kind of fabric, there are necessarily employed at least three warp-wires a, l), and c, as shown in Fig. 2, and for weaving it a loom using three heddles is required, and in the manufacture of the warpwires the heddles are so operated as to cause two warp-wires to be down and one up, alterticular form of loom for accomplishing this result, as the general principles are well known.

f In weaving the fabric I prefer to make it in widths of three feet and to employ sets of `warp-wires about six inches apart. These dimensions may, however, be varied at will. `The butt-ends of the wisps of straw (see Fig. 1)'are made to overlap each other like shingles, and they are overlapped so as to show about six inches, more or less, to the weather. In any one section or width of this fabric all but three sets of warp-Wires willbe covered up by the overlappedA butt-ends of the wisps of straw; but on the upper edge the three sets ofv warp-wires will be visible. When, however,'one section of the fabric is laid upon another section on the roof with a proper lap, the butt-ends of vthis second section lap over and cover up the otherwise-exposed wires of the first laid section, so that there is no direct exposure of wire, anda uniformed lapped surface ofroof isY presented to the weather. In weaving a section of this fabric with overlapped butt-ends all that is necessary to secure this result is to so ll in the wisps of straw between the-warp-threads as to allow the butt-ends of the several courses to project entirely above the warp-wires-z'. e., the

warp-wires'are made to grasp the wisps at a 4point above their lower ends far enough to give the weather exposure below.

In order to make the lower edge of a thatched roof of a proper thickness, the section of fabric which is to go along the eaves has its lower edge madegdouble thickness, which is accomplished by putting two layers on without any difference in lap, as shown at in Fig. 3.

In making my fabric I prefer to use the principle of the loom with a two-ply thick- .ness of thatch, which gives a much closer and tighter fabric that perfectly sheds the water but I do not confine myself to operating the binding-wires by the loom action, as it is obvious that many of the advantages of my invention might be obtained by stitchingthe layers of thatch-Wisps togetherby a wire-sew- IOO take-up cylinder is made easily portable and is shipped to any point and simply laid on rafters without any sheathing beneath it, there being wrapped across the rafters supporting-wires, to which the thatch fabric is fastened by other wires, and thus the roof is quickly applied,iir1nly held, and may be easily detached, rolled up, and removed to another point. This latter feature of portability without destruction or damage is a feature of great advantage when temporary shelters are used and moved from time to time or when a tenant moves from one farm to another.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. A portable thatch roofing, consisting of wisps of straw or analogous material fastened together by warp wires or cords arranged in series of groups each group containing three or more of said wires or cords to form an imperforate rain-shedding fabric substantially as shown and described.

together in overlapping layers and bound together by Wires or cords transversely to the length of the Wisps substantially as shown and described.

3. A portable thatch roofing, consisting of Wisps of straw or analogous lnaterial, fastened together by wires or cords transversedly to the length of the Wisps, the body part of said Wisps being arranged two-ply, or with one Wisp in one layer opposite the space between two wisps of the other layer, and the buttends of the Wisps being arranged in overlapping shingle-like layers substantially as shown and described.

4. A portable thatch rooling, consisting of wisps of straw or analogous material, a series of warp wires or cords arranged in sets of three connecting the body of the wisps in two-ply relation, the butt-ends of the wisps being arranged in overlapping shingle-like layers substantially as described.

CHARLES N. BUSI-INELL. Vitnesses:

EDWD. W. BYRN, SoLoN C. KEMON. 

